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Seminar: Laura Pomeroy

Title

Quantifying Infectious Disease Dynamics

Speaker

Laura Pomeroy, Division of Environmental Health Sciences, College of Public Health, The Ohio State University

Abstract

Infectious diseases remain a public health concern worldwide. Recent international outbreaks not only caused serious threats to human health but also surprised medical workers and scientists, highlighting how much is missing in our understanding of infectious disease dynamics. My research aims to better understand viral ecology and evolution with an emphasis on emerging and reemerging diseases. I will describe my recent work modeling foot-and-mouth disease virus, which is a virus that affects livestock. We developed two models – one that represented lifelong immunity in the host population and one that represented waning immunity – and fit them to serology data collected from animals where the virus is endemic in the Far North Region, Cameroon. We selected the model with the better fit, which allowed us to quantify host immunity and viral transmissibility parameters, identify differences between strains, and understand factors that influence local disease persistence. Co-authors on this work were Rebecca Garabed, Ottar Bjørnstad, and Hyeyoung Kim.

I will also present ideas for future projects investigating reemerging diseases in humans and wildlife in Ohio in hopes of highlighting possible projects for future collaborations.